


Years Gone By

by samariumwriting



Series: Trans Claude AU [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Spoilers, Trans Claude von Riegan, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 17:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20313391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: When Byleth wakes up a lot has changed, Claude most of all. A lot can happen in five years, and they've missed it.They'd try to talk to him, but Claude...seemed to be avoiding them.





	Years Gone By

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a direct follow up to the first fic in the series, and content from there is referenced multiple times, so if you want to understand this then reading that will help!  
This has spoilers for Ch12 of Three Houses.  
A quick warning, this piece examines some misgendering and gender dysphoria. Please take care of yourselves <3

Everything felt odd when they opened their eyes now. They felt a little...off centre. When they looked up at the sky, it was a different colour, and they couldn’t quite work out why. No one was mentioning it either, and it made them feel like maybe they’d misremembered its colour.

All the people they once had the pleasure to call their students had changed, too. They’d grown. Their faces were older, harder. Their frowns deeper. The light in their eyes dimmer. The past five years had not been kind to anyone.

But they were still proud. Endlessly proud. Because those children who used to stand in front of them each month, shuffling nervously as they presented them with their next combat assignment, now strove confidently towards their next goal. The going was tough, and each week brought new challenges, but they’d get through this. Of that, Byleth was sure.

Ignatz had improved his haircut, Raphael had bulked out. Lorenz had matured, miraculously, into someone resembling a very fine young man. Everyone had grown and strengthened in their own ways. Claude, perhaps, most of all. 

Claude had never been a shy boy, back when he was their student. He’d been sure of himself, confident in his abilities, and aware of his charisma. But now, his presence transfixed, his words commanded an authority they never had when he was just an intelligent teenager with noble blood. Also, he had a beard.

Gradually, Byleth managed to get round all their former students for a catch-up on what they’d been doing in all these years apart. Lorenz and Lysithea had been aiding their families, Marianne had attained some much-needed confidence (still shy, still hesitant, but so much happier. Seeing her smile really made Byleth feel like a weight had been lifted off their chest). Raphael had run a restaurant with his family, of all things, and Ignatz also hadn’t managed to make it as a knight yet. Leonie was in training, making steps to be exactly where she wanted to be in life.

But, funnily enough, it was difficult to get a hold of Claude. Apparently, in the past five years, he’d become even more elusive than before. It used to be the case that if they wanted to get a hold of him, they could check his room and the library and he’d be in one of those two places. Now, though...he was nowhere to be found.

It was hard to shake the feeling of being concerned about their students. Especially when they didn’t want to be found. In the past, that was always, without fail, a sign that something was wrong. Their former students were adults now, and Byleth knew they should let them develop on their own, and let them understand and deal with their issues independent of their guidance.

And yet...Claude being hard to find felt wrong. Claude was a good leader. A fantastic one, even. At some point along the line while they’d been a teacher (it felt like only last week that they’d still been giving daily bow drills, and in some ways it was), Claude had mentioned that one of the things he thought they were best at in leadership was always being there. So why was he not? There could only be something wrong.

He was so hard to find that eventually they had to ask Lysithea if she knew of anything. She was the most likely to know, after all (she pretended she didn’t care, but Byleth remembered that she was always the one who knew when someone was upset, and she knew everyone’s usual haunts. She cared really).

“He’s probably gone flying again if you can’t find him,” she said, predictably knowing exactly where he was. “I don’t know where he goes, obviously, but he’s always off with that wyvern.”

Byleth nodded, but the answer didn’t really help them. It didn’t tell them how to get him down and actually talk to him. “Thank you, Lysithea,” they said. “Knowledgeable as always.”

“I just have eyes, unlike everyone else,” she said. “And if you had eyes, you’d know that Claude isn’t avoiding any of us. He’s avoiding you. Before you ask, no, I don’t know why, but you should probably ask him yourself. You mean a lot to him.”

“I know,” they said with a sigh. They’d sort of feared that Claude was avoiding them, but they hadn’t...hadn’t really considered what they would do if he was. Or why. He was entitled to be upset that they’d essentially been dead for five years, but how could they break through that barrier? “Thank you anyway.”

They were loath to do it, but after two further weeks of Claude avoiding them, becoming more and more obvious as time went on, they just wanted to know how he was doing. And at this point, he probably needed some reassurance that they weren’t going to disappear again. So, one evening, they knocked on his bedroom door. “Come in!” he called.

When they opened the door, the smile on Claude’s face softened to...something else. They weren’t exactly sure what. “Oh, hey Teach,” he said. “You need something?”

“Just a chat,” they said, and the expression on his face changed again. “If you’re not too busy, of course. That looks like a lot of paperwork.” Claude’s desk, the same one from his Academy days, was absolutely covered in paper and books.

“I always have time for you,” he said, putting his pen down and turning to face them properly. “So fire away, friend. What is it that you wanted to chat about?”

“You,” they said, and the guarded look on his face melted away. “I’m not going to chastise you for it, or tell you to do things differently, but you’ve been avoiding me. I’m concerned. I’d had this talk with everyone else three weeks ago now.”

Claude laughed, and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “It’s odd, seeing you again, and you haven’t changed a bit. Am I older than you now? Are you still the same person, or is it everyone else who’s changed, and that’s why everything feels different? It had me asking a lot of ugly questions.”

“Well, Lorenz managed to find a half decent person to cut his hair,” they said, “but I doubt that’s what you’re referring to.”

Claude’s smile lightened a little, but he shook his head. “Five years ago feels a long time ago now,” he said. “Six years ago feels like another world entirely. But here you are, and you look- well, exactly the same as you did back then. It’s hard, when I spent five years trying to get over your death.”

They nodded. It wasn’t them, of course, but they could understand how it would hurt. If their father climbed out of his grave with a grin and embraced them, they wouldn’t be able to smile back, because their father was dead. “If it means anything, I think all of you have changed for the better. You’ve grown well without me, so don’t worry.”

“I just...argh, Teach, I wish you could have been there,” he said. “There were times when I-I really could have used your company. Your presence. Your...well, you know. There are some things no one else understands.”

It was about this again. Claude had changed and grown, that much was clear. But the confidence he’d gained from their presence...how much of it had faded when they vanished? Did the easy understanding of others disappear also? Claude had been forced to forge a path for himself in the nobility with, apparently, no one who understood him.

“I’m sorry,” they said. “There’s nothing I can do about it now, but I’m sorry anyway. For leaving you to do that by yourself.”

Claude smiled again, and while the smile was sad, it reached his eyes this time. “It’s fine,” he said. “I made it out the other side, and you’re here now. Hey, if I held the Alliance together for five years and managed to grow a beard, think of what we can do together!”

Byleth’s smile widened, and Claude’s did in turn. This was...a huge weight off their shoulders. They’d been so concerned about him, concerned about what he was holding in, and if he was hurting and not letting anyone see. “Seeing as I’m sure you’re bursting to tell me, how did you grow a beard?” they asked.

“Magic,” he said with a wicked grin, and then he indicated his shelf of various glass bottles. Another change from five years ago; they were now labelled, thankfully, so Claude could tell which ones were poison, which ones did what and with which intensity. And then there was a row of bottles, all labelled ‘magic man juice’. They were all the same shade of bright green.

“Magic?” they asked, looking from the bottles to Claude. He shrugged.

“It works,” he said. “I was working on this back when I was a student here. It took a while to get it right, but it’s- it might be the only thing that got me through some of those years.” His smile had saddened again, and Byleth gave him a short pat on the shoulder. They’d never been good at physical comfort, but they could try.

“Do you remember something I said to you years ago?” they asked.

“You’ll have to be more specific, my friend,” Claude said with a quirk of his lips. “You’ve told me a lot of things, and I did try to listen to your lectures, which makes it even more.”

“I told you that you could talk to me,” they said. “You can tell me how you’re feeling, and what you experienced in those five years. Good and bad. It might help, if you understand it better.” It was getting late, but Claude didn’t open up enough. Keeping all of his thoughts inside wasn’t good for him, and Byleth would gladly stay up several more hours if they could help him even a little.

Claude opened his mouth and then closed it again. “It’s late,” he said. “But I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks, Teach. I know I was avoiding you, but it’s good to have you back. It really is.”

“I hope you’re going to bed, then,” they said, getting up and heading towards the door. Claude shot a glance at his desk, still covered in papers. He paused. Byleth gave him a pointed look.

“Fine,” he said, shuffling a couple of papers together and pushing them to the side of the desk. “I’m going to bed. Tactics meeting in the cardinal’s room tomorrow morning like usual?”

“Of course,” they said. “Goodnight, Claude. Thank you for talking with me.”

“Night, Teach,” he said. “Thanks for listening. I...you already know. Thank you.”

-

Two weeks later, everyone in the cardinal’s room witnessed Claude receive a letter, take one glance at it, and rip it to shreds. Byleth fixed him with a questioning look, and he simply shook his head and mouthed ‘later’. He was conspicuously quiet in their meeting that day.

The evening came, and when Byleth hadn’t even been in their room for five minutes, there was a knock on the door. “You can come in,” they called, and unsurprisingly, Claude entered. He offered up a small smile, and it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Mind if I take a seat, my friend?” Claude asked, and they shook their head, indicating the chair to their right. “This might take a while, I hope you don’t mind me taking up your time like this.”

“Not at all,” they said. They felt like Claude probably needed this. “You can say whatever you want, for as long as you want, or nothing at all. I’m here.”

“I received a letter from my father,” he said. “Asking how his ‘treasured daughter’ is getting on.” There was venom in Claude’s voice unlike any Byleth had ever really heard before. Even facing down Edelgard, there had been little anger in his tone. This was something different. “It might have been important, but I can’t stand reading it when I know how he sees me.”

“It’s his own loss,” Byleth said firmly. “He’s just losing out on having you as his son.”

“Mm,” Claude said. “I feel silly for complaining sometimes. I see the way that Hilda was raised, how Marianne was raised, and I know everything could have been so much worse. I was trained in combat in the same way as all the other kids were, and I don’t think I would have been if I was raised as nobility in Fódlan.”

“You can still be sad about what you didn’t have,” they said firmly. “Especially if your father addresses you like that. I’ve always wished that I looked a way that meant everyone understood me without me having to say so. My father was a blessing but almost no one can get it first try.”

“I just-” Claude sighed. “I feel bad for acting like I don’t like them, or like they did something wrong. They love me, and I know that, but it feels like they don’t care about who I really am, or how that makes me feel. And no one at all seems to understand how I feel. It was so...lonely.

“And I feel bad for feeling like that, too. Because I have so many people around me, and they do care. I know they do. They’ve shown me time and time again. But there’s still something. Something that separates me from them. And I don’t know how to bridge that gap and just be happy with myself, just- just once.”

“Claude,” they said, interrupting him quietly. He looked increasingly distressed as he spoke, each word holding more pain than Byleth had ever heard from him before. It hurt to see him so vulnerable. They felt terrible, knowing they’d left him alone to all of this. “It’s okay. Really, every feeling you’ve had about this, it’s fine. You don’t need to feel bad.”

Claude nodded, his fingers twisting ever tighter around the hem of his cloak. “I wanted people to view me differently,” he said. “I couldn’t stand that every time they looked at me they just saw a little girl dressed up as a man. They dismissed everything I said about myself for their own political gain. All of the people who could see me for who I was…” he sighed.

“My grandfather died younger than expected. But Hilda’s parents, her brother, Marianne’s father, Lysithea’s family, Lorenz’s father, they’re all still around. I went from being understood by my peers and having, well, you, to being surrounded by people who didn’t know and mostly didn’t care.” Claude’s hands were shaking. “I was the most important I’d ever been in my life but I felt so insignificant.”

“Is it better now?” they asked, and Claude managed that sad smile that looked so wrong on his face. They were so used to seeing him smiling, keeping everyone’s mood up, but now… “If not, I’m sure there are a fair few people I can set about intimidating at the next convenient opportunity.”

Claude chuckled, but it sounded decidedly hollow. “You could say so,” he said. “I feel more confident in my appearance now. A stranger would never mistake me for a woman, not anymore. But people who know might, and that’s always been the worst feeling. Because they do it out of spite, or some kind of benefit they want to gain.”

“I have a sword and I am never afraid to use it,” they said. “I don’t know much about politics, Claude, but this isn’t your fault. You don’t have to be polite about it, or hold your tongue. They’re just being rude, and they know they are. They only say these things because they know it’ll get to you. People used to do the same thing when I was a mercenary, calling me names because it was the only way they knew to put me down.”

Some of the light they loved to see in Claude’s eyes returned. The strength he took from hearing their experiences...often, they felt like they didn’t deserve the admiration they received from him. They hadn’t done anything they felt could be called an achievement. “What did you do?” he asked.

“Well, usually my father would notice, and he’d threaten to drop them from the company,” they said. “I’m not sure if you can do the same to people who do that to you…”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Minor nobles who met me when I was sixteen are no fun. I just hope I’ll...seem like a man to them one day. I can’t go my whole life with people seeing me as different and strange and something- I don’t know. I just know it has to change.”

“And it will,” they said firmly. The weight in their voice caused Claude to look up, and they met the gaze of those green eyes that had grown up far, far too fast. “I can promise you that things change. You’re an incredibly strong young man, Claude, and at this point I think you can do anything you put your mind to. You’re stronger than their ignorance.”

This time, when Claude smiled, his happiness looked a little stronger. “You’re right, as always,” he said. “Thank you, my friend. I’ll take that to heart.”

The next time Claude received a letter from his father, he cried; it was addressed to his ‘dearest son’. Byleth couldn’t exactly say they’d had nothing to do with it, but they might have written a letter or two to the man.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you have any thoughts, please leave a comment or hmu on twitter @samariumwriting, especially if you have any ideas for places I could take this series next.


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